


Hagiography

by inbox



Series: In The End [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Cancer, Character Death, Established Relationship, Fallout Kink Meme, M/M, Medical, Post Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-06
Packaged: 2017-12-17 22:15:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/872547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six is dying, and there's nothing Arcade can do about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hagiography

They've had a few good years together, him and Six, well over a decade and getting closer to two. They've had some bad years as well, full of arguments and stress, but Arcade chooses to put them aside as a statistical aberration, time not worth thinking about. These days he seeks refuge in memories of happier times, hidden away in his office that overlooks a stretch of sandy beach, avoiding the sight of Six asleep in their bed. He writes his teaching notes for the Followers and drafts his memoirs of their time together. Six and Arcade, the doctor and the adventurer. 

Six is dying, and there's nothing Arcade can do about it.

In the mornings they walk from their corner of a Followers compound by the beach, far enough from the Boneyard to be sunny and bright and full of cool ocean breezes, and make their way to a quiet spot to dig their toes into the sand and watch the waves break on the shore. The sea air does Six good, but the walking tires him out. They watch the ocean together, Six turning his face to the morning sun and holding Arcade's hand in his. Sometimes Arcade tells him about his teaching job, about the novelty of being called Professor by people who look impossibly young. Sometimes they sit in silence until Six's chin drops to his chest, the watery morning sunlight lulling him to sleep. On those mornings Arcade stares straight ahead, jaw clenched, and ignores the trail of wet slipping down his cheeks to dampen his whiskers.

A slow death is not a kind death, not even for men who were once all muscle and brawn with a mischievous smile and a way with words that made Arcade's stomach flip. These days Six says that he feels like he's made out of nothing more than stubbornness and spit, but he still lets Arcade press a stethoscope to his chest and listen to his heart, always wincing at the cool metal against his skin and always saying, _it looks like you're stuck with me for one more day_.

There's nothing to be done about it. The cancer is spread too far through his body, deep in his bones and his bowel and his brain, every speck of him riddled with tumors too plentiful for the best AutoDocs in the Boneyard to pick out. There's a reason most adventurers die young. Too much time spent breathing dust full of irradiated metals, too much contact with fouled waste water, not enough untainted Rad-X and too many Stimpaks that trigger one bad cell in a million. Six is only a year or two older than Arcade, both of them sliding into the paunchy side of their fifties, but he looks like he's seen a thousand decades and Arcade feels like he's got a thousand decades pressing hard against his heart. 

It's hard to imagine that such a big man could contain such a plain, ordinary, all too human skeleton, but when Arcade sits on the edge of the bed and helps him to sit up, all he can feel under his hands are bones rendered thin and frail. Still he pushes Six's shirt up and presses his stethoscope to the papery skin of his sternum, and listens to his chest, morning and night. His breathing is shallow and there's a pain deep behind his ribs that's getting deeper by the week, and they both know there's no real point in keeping up the ritual of taking his vitals and listening to his heart. But still it continues, morning and night, Six's cheek against his own as he counts out a heartbeat that's close to falling silent.


End file.
